NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: VERRAZANO-NARROWS BRIDGE

NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: VERRAZANO-NARROWS BRIDGE; A Crisis Gives Birth to an Inspiration for a Bridge

By JIM O'GRADY

Published: February 24, 2002

When Dave Lutz, executive director of a nonprofit planning group called the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, saw how hundreds of New Yorkers walked over bridges to escape danger on Sept. 11, his mind went to one of his pet causes: adding walkways to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

''People didn't just walk on the roadbeds of the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges,'' he said. ''They crowded the walkways.''

As a result, Mr. Lutz has added increasing public safety to his list of reasons for fitting the city's longest bridge (9,865 feet, from shore to shore) with a path on either side for use by bikers and pedestrians. The other reasons have to do with adding a spectacular link to the city's greenway system, a series of trails for walkers and cyclists. About 100 of the proposed 350 miles of trails have been built throughout the city.

Mr. Lutz and representatives from local recreation and environmental groups plan to travel to Washington in June to lobby for money from federal highway funds earmarked for trails along roadways. He will be carrying a copy of a 1997 report by the Department of City Planning stating that, from an engineering standpoint, it is feasible to build a pair of 10-foot-wide walkways next to the suspender cables on either side of the bridge's upper level. He also plans to take a petition with 10,000 signatures supporting the idea.

Although the walkways are still far from reality, even the prospect sounded enticing to some cyclists.

''I'm all for it,'' said Eric Thomann, a Carroll Gardens resident and long-distance bicycle rider who commutes by bicycle over the Brooklyn Bridge to his job with a Manhattan media company. ''That would throw open a huge amount of possibilities to a large community of riders in Brooklyn and Staten Island.''

The city's newest bridge walkway, on the Manhattan Bridge, opened last fall. Other major city bridges with walkways include the Queensboro, the Triborough and the George Washington. Of Staten Island's four bridges, only the Bayonne Bridge has an open walkway.

The Verazzano walkways would not be cheap. The City Planning Department report estimated a price tag of $26 million.

Cathy Sweeney, a spokeswoman with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's department of bridges and tunnels, which operates the bridge, would not comment on the proposal. But Jack Schmidt, director of transportation at the City Planning Department, said some of the authority's officials worried that people might use the walkway to climb the bridge's cables.

Mr. Schmidt said, however, that the walkways would be both safe and popular. ''Who would not walk out there to get the beautiful views of Manhattan and Lower New York Bay?'' he asked. JIM O'GRADY

Photo: Walkways along the Verrazano? ''I'm all for it,'' says one Brooklyn cyclist. (Philip Greenberg for The New York Times)